Version 4.0
The Blockbridge volume driver integrates Docker with Blockbridge elastic block storage. Blockbridge enables tenant isolation, automated provisioning, encryption, secure deletion, snapshots and QoS for any storage backend: on local storage or with any storage vendor over any protocol.
The Blockbridge volume driver implements the Docker volume plugin API, and runs as a container.
The Blockbridge volume driver is a full-featured volume plugin for Docker, enabling multi-host access to block storage data volumes. Many functions are available through the native Docker API and command line tools. More advanced functionality is accessible via the API exposed by the Blockbridge Volume Driver and accompanying command lines tools.
The table below presents the base feature list for 4.0 along with interface support guidelines.
| Blockbridge Feature | Via Docker API | Via Blockbridge API |
|---|---|---|
| Create Volume | Yes | Yes |
| Inspect Volume | Yes | Yes |
| List Volumes | Yes | Yes |
| Remove Volume | Yes | Yes |
| Secure Transport Volumes | Yes | Yes |
| Authenticated Volumes | Yes | Yes |
| Encrypted Volumes | Yes | Yes |
| QoS Volumes | Yes | Yes |
| Create Volume Profile | – | Yes |
| Inspect Volume Profile | – | Yes |
| List Volume Profiles | – | Yes |
| Remove Volume Profiles | – | Yes |
| Volume Backup | – | Yes |
| Volume Restore | Yes | Yes |
| Inspect Backup | – | Yes |
| List Backups | – | Yes |
| Remove Backup | – | Yes |
docker-compose up
The default compose file will automatically connect to a running Blockbridge storage simulator.
- Blockbridge Volume Plugin for Docker
For most cases, using the Docker compose file will start the volume driver, and connect to the Blockbridge simulator.
docker-compose up
For running against Blockbridge storage (not the simulator), or for more complicated setups, additional configuration may be required. A startup script is provided for these cases.
Two environment variables are required in order to use the startup script:
BLOCKBRIDGE_API_HOST
BLOCKBRIDGE_API_KEY
Set these environment variables to point to the Blockbridge backend storage, and to authenticate with the management API. The Blockbridge simulator, or any other Blockbridge storage can be configured for use with the volume driver.
export BLOCKBRIDGE_API_HOST="172.17.42.121"
export BLOCKBRIDGE_API_KEY="1/4pz/TrwO0l53xY8j6VkorTZu2wJEeaaH5PktWI2AxSXynP9OvA7THw"
./bin/blockbridge-docker-volume
Confirm the driver is running
docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
f9bba845cc12 blockbridge/volume-driver "./volume-driver.sh" About a minute ago Up About a minute blockbridge-volume-driver
Blockbridge volumes are created by specifying the volume driver type as 'blockbridge'. The Blockbridge volume driver supports multiple volume options and provisioning attributes specified.
The volume is provisioned according to the options specified. The volume type determines the required options. As Blockbridge is multi-tenant storage, a User is always required.
The user (tenant) to provision the volume for.
Option name: user
The volume capacity.
Option name: capacity
The volume quality of service (QoS). This is a reserved, guaranteed minimum IOPS performance of the volume. It requires QoS configuration on the backend.
Option name: iops
Blockbridge volumes support transport security. Specify tls to access your volumes over the network with TLS.
Option name: transport
If the volume is configured for authentication, specify the one-time-password (OTP) in order to access the volume.
Option name: otp
The volume source to restore from. On volume create, restore from the specified backup.
Option name: from_backup
In addition to the required volume options, volume provisioning attributes can be specified to determine particular qualities of the storage to provision from.
These attributes are configured by an administrator on the Blockbridge storage backend, and then specified by the volume driver as query parameters.
Attributes such as SSD, IOPS 30000, Rack 42, New York, Chicago, Production, all identify unique sets of storage pools.
Specifying provisioning attributes provides an automated and fundamental way to describe the exact storage characteristics you want to provision for your volume.
Option name: attributes
Backup a volume with the volume driver
docker exec blockbridge-volume-driver volume backup datavol
Restore a volume that was backed up. Use standard volume create options with a backup source specified.
docker volume create --driver blockbridge --name datavol-restore --opt from_backup=datavol-backup
There are two ways in Docker to create a volume, either explicitly via docker volume create or implicitly at docker run time.
Create a blockbridge volume:
docker volume create --driver blockbridge --name datavol --opt user=block --opt capacity=32GiB
Once a default profile has been configured (see below), create a blockbridge volume:
docker run --volume-driver blockbridge -v datavol:/data -it busybox sh
NOTE: you cannot pass volume options on the commandline during docker run, these can only be specified explicitly with docker volume create --opt, or a Blockbridge default volume profile must be setup. If doing an implicit volume create, a default profile must be setup
Reference existing Blockbridge volume at docker run:
docker run -v datavol:/data -it busybox sh
docker volume ls
docker volume inspect datavol
The Blockbridge volume driver supports out of band volume creation, outside of Docker.
docker exec blockbridge-volume-driver volume create --name datavol --user block --capacity 32GiB
docker exec blockbridge-volume-driver volume ls
docker exec blockbridge-volume-driver volume inspect
docker exec blockbridge-volume-driver volume inspect --name datavol
docker exec blockbridge-volume-driver volume --help
Blockbridge volume profiles are a way to describe different sets of volume options and provisioning attributes as a Storage Profile or Storage Template. Instead of specifying each individual option every time a volume is created, a volume profile can be referenced.
Create a profile with the volume driver:
docker exec blockbridge-volume-driver profile create --name block-profile --user block --capacity 32GiB
Reference the profile to create a volume. Each volume that uses this block-profile will be created for the block user with a capacity of 32GiB.
docker volume create --driver blockbridge --name datavol2 --opt profile=block-profile
By naming a profile default, it will be used if no options are specified.
Create a default profile:
docker exec blockbridge-volume-driver profile create --name default --user block --capacity 32GiB --iops 10000
The power of volume profiles comes from defining sets of options and defining storage provisioning attributes. For example, you may have different classes of storage, Gold and Silver. You may have storage in different availability zones, different racks in a datacenter, different storage media (ssd, spinners), and for different users.
Define profiles that make sense for your environment.
docker exec blockbridge-volume-driver profile create --name gold --user block --capacity 1TiB +ssd +production +multipath +high-iops
docker exec blockbridge-volume-driver profile create --name us-east --user block --capacity 10GiB +us-east +ssd -production
docker exec blockbridge-volume-driver profile create --name rack42 --user block --capacity 16GiB +rack42
docker exec blockbridge-volume-driver profile ls
docker exec blockbridge-volume-driver profile info --name rack42
docker exec blockbridge-volume-driver profile --help
Blockbridge volumes are accessible on any host, with no data copy required.
Backups are managed directly via the Blockbridge volume driver. Specify a volume profile to manage backups for, or with none specified the default is used.
List backups for default profile.
docker exec blockbridge-volume-driver backup ls
List backups for specified profile.
docker exec blockbridge-volume-driver backup ls --profile block-profile
docker exec blockbridge-volume-driver backup inspect datavol-backup
docker exec blockbridge-volume-driver backup rm datavol-backup
The Blockbridge storage backend is available as a simulator running as a Docker container.
Blockbridge is Elastic Block Storage for everyone. Run Blockbridge on bare-metal, on a VM, or in a container, in any cloud, on any provider. Access your data directly from any Linux or Windows host as a standard block device, or use it as a Docker volume through the volume plugin in a swarm. Manage your storage via Web UI, cross-platform command-line tools, or REST API. See https://blockbridge.com for more information and to download fully functional trial software, or contact us at info@blockbridge.com with any questions. We’d love to hear from you!
Please let us know what you think! Contact us at support@blockbridge.com or on github.